


Ex Libris

by Thistlerose



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Books, Future Fic, M/M, Post-Canon, Romance, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-31
Updated: 2010-08-31
Packaged: 2017-10-11 09:12:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/110776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thistlerose/pseuds/Thistlerose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After four tours of duty, they're ready to try being planetside for a while. "Besides," said Jim, "we have this house. We've had this house for ten years. Let's live in it."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ex Libris

**Author's Note:**

> Many thank yous to Linelenagain for beta reading. A few lines are taken directly from _Have Spacesuit, Will Travel_ by Robert A. Heinlein. Also, there's a little off-screen secondary character death. And a little sex.

Jim finishes his beer and sets the bottle down. "I have a theory."

"Oh, God."

"You're not even going to wait to hear it before you shoot it down?"

"I wasn't shooting it down, I was—"

"What?"

Bones opens his mouth like he's about to say something, but apparently thinks better of it. He takes a last sip of his beer, smiles, shakes his head, then leans across the box of books to kiss Jim.

"Mm," Jim murmurs appreciatively. "The coward's route."

"Shuttup."

"Wasn't complaining."

Bones deepens the kiss, and God, his lips are so soft and wet, and he's licking at the corner of Jim's mouth, and Jim forgets his theory, forgets why they're kneeling on the floor amid piles of haphazardly sorted books. Bones cups Jim's cheek, and tilts his head for a better angle, knocking his reading glasses askew in the process. Jim scrunches up his features, trying to right them, but they only slip further down his nose, and fuck it, if he breaks _this_ pair, it'll be Bones's fault, no debate.

*

"So, my theory," Jim says a few minutes later when they're sprawled on the floor, Bones's head on his hip, the glasses set safely aside, "is this. You and I have a number of duplicate books in our collection. Being a doctor and all, you should know what happens when you leave two books alone."

"They collect dust?"

Jim gives his hair a gentle tug. "They _breed._ Obviously." Aware that Bones can't see it from where he's lying, he gestures expansively with his free hand.

Considering the fact that most books these days – and for the past century and a half – are published electronically, they've acquired quite a collection of paperback and hardcover editions. Since purchasing and renovating this house in Alameda – has it really been ten years? _Wow,_ thinks Jim – they've been slowly moving into it.

Eight years ago, they bought a kitchen table, a couple of chairs, and furniture for the master bedroom. Six years ago, during an extended shore leave necessitated by Jim breaking his back in a shuttle crash, they – well, Bones, really – repainted the walls, furnished the guest bedroom and the office, and found a home for the family of cats that had taken up residence in their absence. Five years ago – after the end of their third tour of duty – Winona surprised them by retiling their bathroom and installing a set of kitchen cabinets, apparently by herself. She'd also gotten in contact with Joanna, and the two of them had contrived to relieve Bones's ex of his parents' and grandparents' old furniture and trinkets, most of which had been collecting dust in an Atlanta attic, anyway. And so on.

After their fourth tour, Jim was promoted to commodore, and Bones was offered an attending position at Starfleet Medical. Jim told Bones to take the job. The decision was surprisingly easy, but then, there were good reasons to stay planetside for a while: Bones had recently turned fifty, and was going to be a grandfather; Starfleet Medical had been after him for years, and they'd thrown in all kinds of perks and benefits. "Besides," said Jim, "we have this house. We've had this house for ten years. Let's live in it."

The house is looking pretty presentable these days. All that remains, really, is the organization of the library.

Which was what Jim was in the middle of when Bones interrupted him with his chilled beer, his lush, kissable lips, and his doubts about Jim's brilliant theory.

Doubts that have not been allayed, it would seem. "Breed?" Bones drawls, and Jim can't see it, but he knows that right eyebrow is practically at his hairline. "Darlin, leave the biology to those who've studied it for years. What did you find, anyway?" He grabs the box of books and slides it toward him, tipping it over so the contents spill onto the floor beside him. Turning his head, but not raising it, he starts pushing through them. "This is everything we have two of?" he says after a minute.

"Or three or four or ten."

"_Ten_? What the hell do we have ten copies of?"

"Your book."

"_Comparative Alien Physiology_? Why?"

"Because it's _your_ book. And maybe I exaggerated. Maybe it's more like two. Three, if you include the one in the office. Uh, four if you count the electronic copy. But those two in the box are mine."

"Why would _you _have even one copy of my book?"

"One for display, one for … personal use."

"_Personal_ use?" Bones's tone is dry. Both eyebrows must be raised by now. "Those are anatomical diagrams, not porn."

Giving his hair another tug, Jim says equably, "I need something to do when you're in surgery late. But that wasn't what I meant," he continues when Bones gathers his breath for what would probably have been an explosive response. "I mean I made notes in the margins. Of all the things I didn't understand."

"It's a medical textbook, Jim, and it's pretty technical. Were there any parts you actually _did_ understand?"

That earns him a gentle slap on his forehead. "I had to put up with you while you wrote the damn thing. I wanted to know."

"Now _I_ wanna know." Bones picks up the book and opens it on his chest. There's a brief flutter of pages, then: "The dedication? You had a problem with the _dedication_?"

He lifts the book so Jim can squint at it, like he thinks Jim doesn't remember surrounding the words _TO S_ with question marks and exclamation points in black ink.

"Not a problem," Jim says. "I was just surprised. You didn't tell me. It's a brilliant move, though. The only way he can possibly counter it is by dedicating a book on logic to you, and you know he'd never do that because it would be an emotional, albeit logical response."

"You're jealous."

"No."

"Jim." Bones tilts his head back and gives him an upside-down smile. "Spock is my friend and colleague. He gets a book. The rest is yours."

Bones can say things like that, in that casual drawl, with his eyes full of green sparks. It's good that he can, because Jim can't, not like that, not even after all these years. He always chokes, or the words come out sounding weird, kind of stiff, like they don't really belong to him. In the quiet darkness of their bedroom, he can whisper, _I love you_. And he knows that Bones knows how he feels. But Jim has always found it easier to act his heart than to speak it.

So right now he pushes himself up and curls over Bones, cradling his neck in the crook of his arm, claiming his mouth with a slow, deep kiss. _The coward's route,_ he thinks wryly, but he doesn't feel like a coward, so maybe he isn't, maybe he's just…

Bones slides his fingers into Jim's hair, and Jim promptly forgets everything he may or may not be.

*

"So, what else do we have?" Bones muses when they break apart again. His voice is a little rough, his heartbeat stuttery. The way he's lying, with his cheek pressed to the back of Bones's thin t-shirt, Jim can feel it. He strokes Bones's back lightly, enjoying the heat of his skin through the cotton and the way his muscles move as he pushes books around.

"We have two copies of _A Tale of Two Cities,_" Bones says. "Do we need two?"

"One of those is from Spock," says Jim, tracing circles on Bones's shoulder. "The older Spock. He gave it to me before he died. He never really explained why he wanted me to have it. I mean, I'd read it before, though I didn't say that. I thought maybe it was because it was about two men who looked exactly alike, but were completely different. Had different destinies."

"They weren't completely different," says Bones. "They were both good men."

Jim shrugs. The truth is that he spent entirely too long brooding over the meaning of Spock's gift, wondering if he was supposed to be Sydney Carton, Charles Darnay, neither, or some combination of the two. The ancient Vulcan's death hit him hard – harder than he had ever been willing to admit, even to Bones or his own Spock. It wasn't like losing a father – or how he sometimes imagined losing a father would feel, never having had one to lose, not in the sense that Bones had. It wasn't like the way he felt on Praxhalit, when he honestly thought he'd lost his First Officer in a mudslide, and it was _nothing_ like how he felt on Mirabis, when a vengeful energy being temporarily sucked the life out of Bones.

Remembering the cold, dead weight of Bones's body, Jim leans up and kisses his neck. He can feel the pulse there, good and strong, but the memory persists, so he kisses his way around to his Adam's apple, then down to the gentle dip in his clavicle.

Bones rumbles soothingly, and wraps a warm, protective hand around the back of Jim's neck. His lips in Jim's hair, he murmurs, "You could only be a good man, whatever your destiny."

Jim lifts his head and smiles. Bones has no idea he's thinking about Mirabis – why would he? – and that's fine, that's perfectly fine.

"We'll give the other copy away," Bones says, setting Spock's gift aside.

"Yeah, okay." Jim leans back on his elbows and watches Bones pick up another pair of books.

"What about these two? _The Cosmos A to Z_ by Laura Danly? I haven't seen this book in ages. Must be one of the ones Jo found in Jocelyn's attic." He turns the book over and reads with some reverence, "'The essential guide to space, the final frontier! Now you can explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations, boldly go where no one has gone before!' God, I remember lying in the grass behind my parents' house, watching the stars. I had a flashlight, this book, and maybe a bag of praline pecans with me. And Beauregard. I told you about the Shar Pei we had when I was a kid. Best dog in the world." He glances at Jim. "What d'ya think? We don't really need both, and it looks like yours is an older edition. _Really_ old," he adds, frowning thoughtfully.

God, Bones is easy to read sometimes. "We'll keep yours," Jim says. "I was meaning to give my copy to Spock, now that he's Captain of the _Enterprise._ That's Admiral Archer's book," he continues when Bones shoots him a questioning look. "Was, anyway, when he was captain of the first ship called _Enterprise._ He gave it to Pike a little before the Battle of Vulcan, and then Pike gave it to me. I didn't tell you? That's so weird. Though – I guess when Pike first gave it to me, I didn't really want to think about it. Part of me felt he should've been allowed to captain her for longer than he did, and part of me…" He trails off, unwilling to voice the thought that's now in his head; it isn't one he's proud of.

As if sensing the shift in his mood, Bones sets both copies of Danly's book aside. "Huck Finn?" he says next. "I loved the book when I was a kid, but I have no particular attachment to this copy. You?"

Jim glances at the dog-eared paperback Bones is holding toward him, but doesn't take it. "I must've been seven or eight when I first read it. No, I remember. I was eight. Mom was off-planet, and Uncle Frank had us at his house. The day I finished it, I thought it would be fun to build my own raft and take it down the English River. I'd take it as far as I could go and just … I dunno. Frank wasn't so bad back then. I think I just hated being left behind. Fortunately, I told Sam what I had in mind. He told me it was stupid and I shouldn't do it, but you know me, of course I had to try. So I did." He bites his lip as he remembers. "To this day, I don't know if Frank told Sam to check up on me or if he decided to do it on his own. He rode by on his bike just as the raft was breaking apart in the middle of the river."

"You could swim, though, right? Didn't you tell me once—?"

"Yeah, I could swim since I was three. But the rope I used to tie up the branches got tangled around my legs somehow. Sam pulled me out by the hair. First he hit me, then he hugged me and told me I was an idiot."

"For the record," Bones says as he sets Jim's copy of the book with the others that they're keeping, "you—"

"I know," Jim interrupts with a rueful smile. "I _am_ an idiot. Sometimes." Leaning together, he and Bones look down at the last two books.

"_Have Spacesuit, Will Travel_!" Bones exclaims softly. "This must've been from Jo's haul. I can't remember – d'you know how long it's been since—"

There's an almost feverish light in his eyes as he picks up his copy, and his hands shake as he flips to the first page. The paper is dry and yellow with age; it has that scent that some old books acquire, that Jim can't describe but knows instantly. Bones starts to read, and Jim jumps right in, from memory:

_You see, I had this spacesuit. How it happened was this way: "Dad," I said, "I want to go to the moon."_

"Certainly," he answered, and looked back at his book. It was Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat_, which he must know by heart._

Bones glances up and his eyes meet Jim's. They're warm and sort of honey-brown in the deepening afternoon light, and the shadows of his lashes. He moistens his lips with the tip of the tongue, and it's funny because Jim's seen him do that so many times in the twenty-three years of their friendship, but for the first time he's astonished by how _young_ it makes him look. For a moment, the laugh-lines and gray hairs fade, and Leonard McCoy is no more than ten, reading classic science fiction under his blanket with a flashlight. Jim can only wonder at what Bones must see in his face at that moment.

Whatever it is, it makes him smile like he's just been told a delicious secret, and drop his gaze back to the pages.

_I said, "Dad, please. I'm serious."_

This time he closed the book on a finger and said gently, "I said it was all right. Go ahead."

"Yes, but how?"

"Eh?" He looked mildly surprised. "Why, that's your problem, Clifford."

Bones stops reading at that point and closes the book. Staring at something in the middle distance, he says, "I read that, and I wanted to be an astronaut. I didn't even know I had aviophobia. I'd never been in a shuttle before. I just wanted to be an astronaut."

"Me too," Jim says.

"Lying in the grass with Beau, I used to think about it."

"In the hayloft. Looking through the slats in the roof … yeah."

"Didn't even occur to me to join Starfleet. That I could when I was older, I mean. I just wanted to be an astronaut."

"Me too." Their voices, Jim notices, have dropped to a whisper, and their fingers have become laced. "Let's keep your copy," he says.

"You sure? Why?"

_It was your first step toward me._ "Just because."

But Bones knows what he means. He sets the book down and cups Jim's chin with his free hand. He starts to kiss him and Jim melts into it, his eyes fluttering shut, need and desire flaring in his chest and spiraling downward. He lifts his arms so Bones can pull his shirt over his head; he lifts his legs to wrap them around Bones's hips as he's lowered to the floor.

Their lovemaking is not quite gentle, but there's an unhurried grace to it, the kind that comes with long years of intimacy. They take their time getting lost in each other. They suck bruises into each other, leave wheals with teeth and nails. There's blood, but the pain is fleeting, like flashes of summer lightning. Surrounded by Bones, penetrated by him, stuck to him with sweat and pre-come, Jim thinks things he'd never say aloud: _own me, make me over, fix me, inhabit me._ Then it all goes away in a burst of pleasure, a guttural moan, and a rush of white light.

*

When he comes back to himself, he's still on the floor, but cuddled against Bones, who's brushing his face with haphazard kisses. He feels limp and wide open, subsumed, memorized. In moments like this, he can say _I love you_, and he does without opening his eyes. Bones makes a throaty sound and kisses him roughly on the mouth, hugging him tighter. Jim can feel the unsteady tread of his heart, like pages fluttering beneath his fingertips.

5/21/10


End file.
